Granada - Nicaragua

Having spent twice as long on Utlia as I had expected, and servery cutting into my travel time before I needed to be in Costa Rica to meet my friends, I decided to forgo the rest of Honduras and try and get straight to Nicaragua. With me was Judith, a German girl I had met in Belize and now, having finished her diving on Utlia, wanted to do the same thing.

Getting to the Nicaraguan border wasn´t that bad, crossing it was another matter. As soon as we stopped the collectivo at the immigration station, we were swarmed by money changers and guys with tuk tuks all wanting to ¨help¨us. The surrounded Judith, whose Spanish was much better than mine, and started negotiating fares to take us across the border. One guy went a step further and took our bags from the car and put them on his tuk tuk. We asked him a price, and he quoted us 20 Limperias to take us across. A fare offer, we climbed aboard.

Not twenty feet later, when I asked him what the conversion rate was, he started quoting a different price for the ride. Now he wanted $2 each. Judith, not one for tricks, became furious and told him to stop. He pretended not to hear us and kept on. At this point we both told him to stop and started getting out of the tuk tuk, while it was still rolling down the hill. Not wanting to loose his fare, he agreed to our original price. We made a stop off at the border patrol to get stamped and then road on to the Nicaraguan side, where we had read buses would be waiting to to take you on to other destinations. But the driver, who, when asked about where the buses were, shook his head and saying they were, Pinche (assholes). That very well could be true, but I still wanted to find these assholes and I catch a bus.

I was beginning to get an uneasy feeling about this guy, who now avoided talking to us and was looking around as if to see if anyone was watching. He rolled to a stop in a vacant lot behind a abandoned truck inspection station. Judith asked him where the buses where and he repeated that they were assholes and then demeaned $2 from each of us. I was getting ready to step up and act brave saying we would not pay, but Judith, who saw this coming beat me two the punch. She tore into him, with unabated curtness and unsuppressed imfromality (as Germans can well do), saying that he was a lier and they was no way we were going to pay him anymore then the original price. He stood there looking at us, first her then me, who could only offer a nod as if to say ´yeah, what she said!´Shaking his head he took the Limperas and turned around calling us both Pinche Gringos, and we walked on from there.

After a lot of searching and asking, we found the out of the way hidden bus station where every other tuk tuk driver was dropping and picking up passengers and got our bus. We headed to Leon, a small city in the northwestern province famed for its charming colonial ambiance and distinctive local flair. Plus, I wanted to meet up with Mike, a friend from Guatemala, who had sent word that he was waiting for me there. We stayed there for a total of four hours. Both Judith and I had grand visions of towering colonial cathedrals and, indigenous artwork and clothing shops lining the streets, but found it to be a little uninspiring and dead. I guess when you´ve seen a parque central in every country you go to it losses its luster after a while. We stayed there just long enough to get some lunch and check my email, where I learned that Mike had moved on just that morning to Granada, another colonial city on the coast of lake Nicaragua. Wasting no time we took the next bus.

Granada was great. While it was still another typical Latin American city with a central park and cathedrals, it also possessed a certain vibrance that was laking in Leon. We met up with Mike, at one of the hostels and had a chance to catch up over dinner and drinks. Mike is a 33 year old school teacher from England who I met during a poker tournament in San Pedro, Guatemala. He is young at heart and can party with the best of them and always seems to know whats going on.

The next day, the three of us took in some culture, Judith going to a local village nearby and Mike and I touring some churches and the local museum. Both were underwhelming to say the least but we felt good about ourselves, having exercised our intellectual side. Check that off for a few more months. Meeting up with Judith in the afternoon we made our way down to the lake and took a lancha for a tour of the Isletas. A group of over 360 miniature islands that pepper the lake just off the coast of Granada, the Isletas make up a charming labyrinth of mangroves. Each island, only about 100ft from shore, owned a house, restaurant, or bar with wide verandas overlooking the far eastern shoes of Lake Nicaragua. We found bird sanctuaries and curious spider monkeys that liked to jump from the trees onto your boat and look through your belongings, and finally we found a bar were we stopped for a few beers before heading back to Granada.

Back in town, we met up with Emily, a South Londoner and a friend of Judith´s. Together the four of us set out for a tour of the nightlife, which didn´t disappoint. After a controversial pool game, which the Brits claim to have one on the last shot (who the hell thinks you don´t have to call the 8 ball?) we went to a salsa bar, where, Emily being my experienced teacher, taught me the finer points of the Salsa and Meringue. I can´t say I was graceful, but it was a lot of fun, and I have to add that to the list of things I want to learn before returning to the states.

Again, my time here was cut short because I of my impending rendezvous with my friends in Costa Rica, and also because there was a lot more of Nicaragua that I wanted to see. Next up it was going to the volcanic island of Omotepe, located just off the southern shores of Lake Nicaragua.